NAME
    Haul - Haul packages off CPAN and do things with them

SYNOPSIS
      use Haul;
      my $h = Haul->new;

      # report whether a module is installed
      my $version = $h->installed("Acme::Colour");

      # fetch a package from CPAN
      my $filename = $h->fetch("Acme::Colour");

      # fetch and extract a package from CPAN
      my $dir = $h->extract("Acme::Colour");

      # install a module from CPAN (and its deps)
      $h->install("Acme::Colour");

DESCRIPTION
    This module knows about CPAN modules. It can report whether a module is
    installed, can retrieve packages off CPAN that relate to a module,
    extract them into a directory for you, and even install modules and all
    their dependencies.

    There are existing tools which do this job, but they are very
    complicated and only deal with the current perl program. Haul can deal
    with an external perl program, and so is ideal for build systems, SDK
    building and automated CPAN testing.

    Throughout this module, we use module names (such as "Acme::Colour")
    instead of package names (such as "Acme-Colour"). Later releases may be
    more featureful.

METHODS
  new
    This is the constructor. It takes an optional argument, which is the
    path to the perl program to install modules to.

      my $h = Haul->new;
      my $h = Haul->new(perl => "/home/acme/perl583/bin/perl");

  installed
    This method reports the version number of an installed module. It
    returns undef if the module is not installed.

      if ($h->installed("Acme::Colour") { ... }

  fetch
    Downloads the package related to a module and returns the path to it.

      my $filename = $h->fetch("Acme::Colour");

  extract
    Downloads the package related to a module, extracts it into a directory
    and returns you the path to it.

      my $dir = $h->extract("Acme::Colour");

  install
    Downloads the package related to a module, and installs it (and its
    dependencies). Make sure you have appropriate permissions.

      $h->install("Acme::Colour");

AUTHOR
    Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>

COPYRIGHT
    Copyright (C) 2004, Leon Brocard

    This module is free software; you can redistribute it or modify it under
    the same terms as Perl itself.

